


Closer to the Water

by mapped



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Multi, Nonbinary Character, Other, Polyamory, Post-Season/Series 04, There is some Maxanne but the focus is on Mark/Jack/Anne, Threesome - F/M/Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 12:06:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14236917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapped/pseuds/mapped
Summary: Mark Read finds himself drawn further and further in.A story about metamorphoses, and about being a work in progress.





	Closer to the Water

**Author's Note:**

> Mark Read is nonbinary in this fic and uses he/him pronouns.
> 
> With immense thanks to [Cillian](https://thiccflint.tumblr.com/) for reading the first draft of this and providing really helpful comments. (Any mistakes in this fic are my own.)

 

 _“If I'm not what I was when I was born, and I ain't what I've become instead... what the fuck am I?”_  
— Anne Bonny

 

You’ve heard the tales of Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny, but when the boy you gave a coin to points out Rackham in the tavern, it’s a bit of a surprise. You imagined someone more imposing, but Rackham is slight—skinny as you, perhaps. You’re suddenly not so sure about having come all this way for him.

But then you approach him, and any sense of doubt dissipates.

Rackham is as colourful as Nassau. Nassau is gold and bright and loud, the sort of place that makes you feel a little lost, and a little found, just looking at it, like it’s taking pieces of you and putting them back in an unfamiliar order. Talking to Rackham makes you feel the same way. Or listening to him talk does, anyway, since he’s doing most of the talking, and you’re just sitting there, pouring him more rum as he carries on winding his labyrinthine speech around you.

“I was drawn in,” you say to him, because it’s hard not to be honest in front of a man like that, and when he gives you a chance, tells you to meet him at the jetty, you can’t help but beam.

Anne Bonny is more what you expected: you know her the second your gaze lands on her. She’s the imposing one, the shadow cast by a great stormcloud overhead, and her hair is unmistakeable. _Red like the blooid she will drain from you_ , they say in the stories.

She frowns at you, her eyes cold hailstones, and she doesn’t say anything to you at all. 

Rackham, on the other hand, invites you to his cabin, where the walls heave with books. You gape at the numerous shelves, like rows and rows of teeth. The teeth of a very educated beast. “Don’t tell me you’ve read all of these.”

“I’ve _started_ most of them,” Rackham says. “As for whether I’ve finished any of them, that’s a different matter entirely. Starting a book is far more pleasant than finishing one, wouldn’t you agree?”

You bite your lip. Rackham’s clearly a lettered man: what if he thinks less of you for being illiterate? But there’s no point in lying when you’d be so easily caught, so you admit it. “I don’t read.”

Rackham cocks his head. “Don’t, or can’t?”

“Can’t. Never learnt how.”

Rackham is unperturbed, his face smooth and serene. “Anne doesn’t read. _Doesn’t_. She knows how. She just won’t touch a book. It wounds me deeply, but there you are. No way to persuade her to just give it a go, no matter how passionately I recommend something to her.” He trails his fingertips along book spines. “What kind of book would you like, do you think, if you could read?”

You want to say, _Stories about people like you_ , because it’s these stories that have fed you this past year, when you had nothing but grief in your belly, and because there’s just something about Rackham that makes you want to be honest, but you don’t. “I don’t reckon it’s something I can guess,” you say. “But it’d be good to find out.”

You give him a smile, hoping, and he smiles back. He picks a book from the shelf and starts reading to you.

It’s dull. Really dull. So dull you can’t figure out what it is at all, but you just let Rackham’s voice click on, relishing its angular sounds; if Rackham’s voice was something tangible it’d be the cool teeth of a copper key, pressing into the centre of your palm.

“No wonder Bonny won’t read anything you tell her to,” you remark dryly, when the simple enjoyment of Rackham’s voice is no longer enough to make this experience tolerable.

“You don’t like Descartes?”

You wrinkle your nose at the name. “ _Who_? If they’re French, I hate them already.”

Rackham exhales in a huff of laughter. “Yes, you fought against the French for years, didn’t you? René Descartes is indeed a Frenchman, I’m afraid.” He selects another book from the shelf and begins, grandiose and clear, “ _Of bodies changed to various forms, I sing…_ ”

This one doesn’t bore you. You’re drawn in.

* * *

You’re going to see Rackham again, to listen to more of the _Metamorphoses_. You like it a lot, the way it’s not just one story or two or three, but a starlit sky of stories, twinkling and infinite. Men are shaped from earth, from blood, from stone. Girls are transfigured into trees, into heifers, into bears. There is nothing still in all the world. It suits the restlessness in you, the thing in you that hungered for war, and then for piracy. You are able to endure anything except stagnant waters.

You’re almost at the door to Rackham’s cabin when it swings open and Bonny strides out of there. She looks you up and down in that way of hers, not contemptuous exactly. You thought it had been suspicion at first, but now, you’re not sure what it is.

She jerks her chin towards the door. “You actually like listening to him read?” she asks abruptly, without greeting, as if this isn’t the first time she’s ever spoken to you directly.

“Well, it’d be nice if I could read myself. But I’m not able.”

“Yeah, but if you _could_ read, you’d just borrow the book from him.”

You’re about to say yes, but then Rackham’s voice sounds in your head, the metallic precision of his consonants, and you shrug. “I think he likes reading aloud. I might as well give him an audience.”

Bonny narrows her eyes and sweeps past you.

When you enter the cabin, Rackham is sprawled in his chair, with his feet up on his desk, scribbling in his log, which lies open in his lap. He glances up and he straightens, planting his feet on the floor and setting the log down on the desk. “Read,” he greets you.

“Should I be nervous that Bonny’s going to stab me in my sleep?”

He raises his eyebrows. “She’d never stab anyone while they were slumbering away. There’s little fun in that for her. Oh, don’t look so alarmed. You know Anne.”

“I don’t,” you point out.

Rackham smiles placidly. “She’s not going to stab you, abed or otherwise.”

“A-hammock, more like.”

“Not a-hammock, either. You’re safe.” His smile broadens as he picks up his copy of the _Metamorphoses_. “Shall we?”

Rackham and Bonny are not as inseparable as they say in the stories. They keep separate quarters. Rackham sits in his cabin and peruses his books, while Bonny haunts the bow of the ship, silent and moody, as though she were keeping the figurehead companion. It might be because your head’s crammed full of myths of transformation lately, but you wouldn’t be surprised if you woke up one day to find that Bonny had become a second figurehead at the prow.

She’d make a good figurehead. Fearful and beautiful at the same time.

* * *

You hadn’t fought in a long time. You’re so alive right now, your heart pounding and your hands swift and sure, that it’s hard to believe that _he_ hasn’t somehow come back to life, that he isn’t fighting beside you, the rhythm of his steps and his sword-strokes instinctually matching yours, fighting to protect while knowing he’s protected. When the shout of surrender rings through the crowd, you halt and look around, dizzy and breathless. There is no sign even of his ghost, but you see Bonny with her knives dripping. She’s staring at you, as if _you’re_ a ghost.

Rackham’s crew cheers. You’re a proper pirate now, but the feeling of victory doesn’t reach you. It’s like those nights when the moon is a huge plate in the sky and feels very close, close enough to eat your dinner off of, but there’s no way to touch it.

Bonny hangs back while others scurry to search the ship and catalogue their prize. She gazes at you as you stand there, spinning on your own distant planet, and she stalks towards you. “You ain’t half-bad at fighting for such a small person,” she says, nodding at you.

You return the nod. “That was nothing.” It was over too soon. “What were you doing looking at me when you should have been fighting?”

Bonny still has her daggers out. She wipes them on her coat. “I can do both plenty well, can’t I? I’m used to watching out for other people when I fight.” You’re certain that by “other people”, she really means “another person”.

You say, “So am I.” But you hadn’t been watching, this time, because you knew that if you looked for him, you wouldn’t find him. It was only if you didn’t look for him that you could feel him resurrected at your side.

Bonny sheathes her daggers, the sound of them slotting into place neat and satisfying. “Jack said you’d been in the continent. Fought in the war.”

“Yeah. Bloody long war it was too.”

“Why’d you come here?”

“The war was finished. A man has to find something to do with his life.” It used to be that referring to yourself so frankly as a man made something shiver inside you, like the surprise of hearing birdsong when you had to keep watch during the war, when it was still dark and you thought it couldn’t possibly be morning so soon—you never knew whether you wanted dawn to come, bringing battle with it, or night to stay, with its comforting cover. It was that same shuddering, ambivalent rush, to call yourself a man. Now, it is a more distant sense of unease, merely like far-off thunder, but it still rattles your skin.

“Didn’t you wanna settle down somewhere?” Bonny asks, thankfully unaware of everything going on inside your head.

“Tried that,” you say. “Don’t _you_?”

“This is the only thing I know how to do.”

“Piracy?”

She shakes her head, and squints into the sun. You realise she’s looking up at Rackham, who’s overseeing everything from the quarterdeck. “Being with the people I care about,” she says.

People. There’s the plural again, when you wouldn’t expect it. “And the captain won’t leave piracy behind,” you say.

Bonny—Bonny _grins_. “Tried that,” she says. “We didn’t get ten steps out of Nassau before he went back crying for his name.”

You detect an immense story there, but you know it’s not something you’ll pry from Bonny, even though the shock of her quirked mouth is bright and pleasing, like a flame ripping through darkness. “Ever wish you’d got further than that?”

She says, with determined finality, “I’m where I need to be.” And she marches off to talk to Jack.

You wish you had her confidence. You’ve never been so free of doubt as that.

* * *

Later, in Rackham’s cabin, victory seems less remote and more personal: less like the moon in the sky and more like a bag of coins jingling on your belt, as it should. It’s his smile, you think. His smile makes everything more real.

“So, how do you feel about being a pirate?” he asks.

“It’s all right.” You didn’t come here to become a pirate, not really. You came here because of the stories, not because you wanted to feature in them, but because you wanted to witness them; you wanted them to be not stories, but truth. And Jack Rackham… Well, he’s as true as anything can be.

“It’s _all right_?” Rackham repeats. “All right! You seemed a lot keener about this whole piracy business when you approached me in that tavern. What’s got you so disillusioned already?”

“I’m not disillusioned,” you protest. “I came here—I came to Nassau because I’d heard about you, and Bonny, and Vane…” Rackham’s gaze, so steady and sharp before, flickers into the distance. The two of you have never talked about Vane. “I might have wanted to be one of you, or I might have just wanted to… know you.”

Rackham says, with a nervous wince, “The last time someone told me they’d heard of Charles Vane, there was a lot of rot about him… making stew out of the bodies of his enemies.”

“Why, you mean to tell me he didn’t?” You widen your eyes as far as you can—comically, you hope.

Rackham laughs, and your heart drums happily. “I’m sorry you never got to meet Charles,” he says, fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves. “Although I don’t know what he would have made of you. He didn’t know what to make of me, for a very long time. I’m quite sure he hated me, at first. Of course, I hated him too, so we were even.”

“I’m glad I got to meet you, anyway,” you say. “That part’s more than all right.”

Rackham ducks his head, but he’s smiling, and he pours you more rum.

* * *

Solid land again, after two weeks—the sands of Nassau sink beneath your feet as you disembark from the boat. “Do you have somewhere to stay in Nassau?” Rackham asks, and you shake your head.

Rackham looks at Bonny, and they communicate in their wordless ways, with little flashing movements of their eyebrows and mouths and chins. After a moment or two of this, Rackham says, “I have a room in the Governor’s house. The house is quite… uh, palatial, really. There’s an excess of spacious, well-appointed rooms that nobody’s using. You could take one of those. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds good.”

Rackham leaves instructions for the quartermaster, before heading off to town with you following him. Bonny walks alongside the two of you for a short time, but she slinks off halfway, disappearing into a building that you’re fairly sure is the whorehouse, even though you’re still a newcomer to Nassau. “Where’s Bonny going?”

“She lives there.”

“But you don’t?”

You and Rackham stare at each other. You’re curious, but Rackham doesn’t seem eager to volunteer any information. He carries on walking, then casually says, “You’ll meet Max soon enough, I’m sure. All will become clear when you do. Well, maybe not _all_ … It’s never been entirely clear to me either if I’m honest. But a great deal will become clear, I can guarantee that much.”

You arrive at the Governor’s house. It’s indeed palatial, with double doors that open up into a vast and airy atrium, where you’re greeted by a housekeeper, whom Rackham politely dismisses. You’re led up a grand staircase and shown a series of empty bedchambers. “The Governor and his wife live here, as do I, and the Governor has a few servants in his employ, but our ratio of residents to rooms is a rather lonely one, as you can see.” Rackham pushes open a door to a room that displays more signs of life than the others. “This is mine.”

The large stringed instrument slumped in a corner is what draws your eye first. You don’t hesitate: you go up to it and stroke the wooden curve of it as if it’s put you under a spell. It gleams and pleads for your affection, such yearning in the way the varnished surface reflects the light from the window.

“You know how to play it?”

You almost jump out of your skin. For a second there you hadn’t been in Nassau. “No. Do you?”

“No. Yes. Well. Not really. I can play some simple tunes badly, and any advanced pieces not at all. At the summit of my wealth I used to hire my own private cellist who’d play for me when I was, erm, engaged in dull and time-consuming activities and required some light entertainment. I grew very fond of the music, but since I am no longer able to afford such extravagance on a regular basis, I paid her to give me a few lessons. She’s a marvellous teacher, no complaints there, but as it turns out, I am a poor student.”

You pluck one of the strings and the cello gives a deep, sombre twang. You shiver and turn to Rackham. “I knew somebody who played it, too. He was magnificent.”

“Ah, then you’ll not want to hear my pitiful renditions…”

“Can’t get better without practice,” you say, trying to be encouraging, but your mind is still mostly somewhere else. Your eyes drift over the many chests in the room, no doubt containing endless stacks of clothing. There are bookshelves here, too, busy and crammed. A mirror slanted against the wall is as tall as Rackham, and you lock eyes with yourself in it, taking off your hat and running a hand through your hair.

“But perhaps you’ll want to choose a room further away from mine so as to be minimally impacted by the… unholy sounds of my practising,” Rackham suggests, but there’s a fragility to his voice that may imply he wishes the opposite.

“No, that’s all right,” you say. “I’ll take the room next to yours. If you don’t object.”

“I don’t object,” Rackham says, immediately. “Let us be neighbours!”

You peek into the next room. The rooms are mostly indistinguishable from each other, with their dusty interiors and their big beds. “Won’t any of the crew accuse you of… treating me special?”

Rackham stands behind you, one hand on your shoulder. “My crew are accustomed to my peculiarities and quite accommodating of them. My relationship with Anne doesn’t appear to trouble them, so. Not that my relationship with you is in any way comparable or similar to my relationship with Anne, but it’s… Well.” Rackham’s hand leaves your shoulder. He doesn’t continue.

You turn around. He’s very close. Your nose almost bumps into the top button on his coat. There’s a four-pointed star embroidered on each button. The first time you noticed those stars, you thought of navigation: how looking at Rackham’s buttons distracted you, made you feel absent and dislocated, unlike the stars in the night sky, which inform you of your presence in the world, your exact location. Or they would, if you were more skilled—but you haven’t been a sailor long. You’re still learning.

You look up at his face, his eyes as dark as his hair, and the shadows of his cheeks. There’s a weakness in his expression, a delicately-held breath, that you want to sketch out in charcoal. “It’s new,” you say. “It’s finding its shape.”

“Quite,” Rackham says, his utterance unsettling strands of your hair. He takes a step back. “You’ll need clean sheets. I’ll get someone to bring those for you.”

His footsteps patter along the corridor.

* * *

You hear impatient footsteps outside, frustrated knocks that aren’t falling on your door but on a door nearby. You open your door and there’s Bonny.

“You seen Jack?” she asks.

“Not today,” you say.

She peers over your head at the room beyond. “He ain’t in there with you, is he?”

You turn to look, too, as if Rackham might be in your room and you wouldn’t know it, and you twist your head this way and that, conducting a thorough search. “No, he’s not here. Unless he’s been sitting in that cupboard since morning.” Bonny snorts, and you turn back to face her. “Why would I lie about it if he was here?”

She frowns. “It ain’t usual to see one of you without the other.”

“I thought that’s what they said about you and Rackham in the stories,” you say.

“Hasn’t been that way for a while,” she says, folding her arms. “Ain’t a bad thing or a good thing, it’s just what we are now. Doesn’t make him any less important to me.” She shakes her head, looking annoyed—not at you, you don’t think. Maybe at herself, or at Rackham, for some reason. “If you see him, tell him I wanna talk to him.”

You nod, and she starts to walk away, but then she looks around and says, “You doing anything right now?”

You were sketching from memory, but that can be put aside and picked up later. “No. Do you have something you need me to do?”

“Max wants to meet you, that’s all,” Bonny says. “Thought I might as well bring you to see her.”

You go with Bonny, feeling stiff and awkward as you walk behind her, your limbs graceless and wrong. The rhythm of your gait is not as natural as it should be. Bonny and Rackham you had some notion of, however fanciful, before you met them. You were prepared for them, even if they—Rackham, at least—are different to what you imagined. But you don’t know anything about Max. You sense that she’s integral to the true story here, though her name doesn’t feature in any of the stories that get told around the world.

“Who _is_ Max?” you ask Bonny, uncertain if you’ll get a proper reply.

“She’d be the governor here if we were in a different world,” Bonny says. “We’re partners, her and me and Jack.”

You come to the tavern where you first met Rackham; it’s as packed and lively as it was then. You’re taken to the office, where a brown-skinned woman sits at a desk, with a braid of her dark hair encircling her head like a subtle crown. Her dress is the red of Bonny’s hair and it looks more expensive than anything you’ve ever owned.

She raises her head from the papers she’s reading, and her gaze goes to Bonny first, smiling and soft. When her eyes fall upon you, they are still amiable, but more reserved and measuring. Something always squirms within you when you’re meeting anyone for the first time, but Max with her elegant dress and her painted eyes feels as near and discomfiting as a blade at your throat.

“Mister Read,” Max says. You flinch. The French accent, first of all, is a blow, an echo of a war you survived and enemies you slaughtered. But that aside, it has never felt entirely right when people call you Mister Read, not least because of those three years when you were married and answered to another surname. And in the army everybody just called you Read. Polite address makes your skin itch.

“Ma’am.” 

“Anne, leave us,” Max murmurs, and Bonny goes without another word. Max tells you to sit. “You are the newest member of Captain Rackham’s crew. I hear he has taken quite a shine to you.” She smiles widely.

You think more intently about her accent. Along with Max’s skin colour, it suggests that she must have been a slave in one of the French colonies, once. Her French accent might mean something complicated to her, too.

“He’s been very kind to me.”

“And how are you finding Nassau so far?”

“It’s a good change from what I’m used to.”

“Have you visited my other fine establishment, across the street?”

“The… brothel, you mean?”

Max nods. “I own the tavern and the brothel and I have a share in many other businesses here in Nassau.”

“No, I haven’t been there. I’m not interested.”

“Forgive me,” Max says. “I’m only promoting to a potential new customer—though it seems to me everyone who comes to Nassau finds their way there at one point or another, whatever their purpose or intention.”

This is a mysterious remark, and you can’t quite understand what precisely Max is trying to insinuate. One of the things that bothered you most about being in the army—and now, being in a pirate crew—was the ribaldry, the crude and never-ending talk of women. Not even of women, but of… tits and cunts. And everyone always expecting some kind of participation from you, some noise of agreement or approval, or laughter in response to their bawdy jokes. You don’t think about women that way. You don’t want to.

“I don’t think I will,” you demur.

Max tilts her head, speculative and sly. “It is where a great many things in this town happen. All the stories _truly_ worth telling, they are all gathered in that inn. It is what holds this place together, and it brims with secrets. You can hear them on the wind at night, whispered on the lips of men to their whores.”

Max’s voice is low and warm, a secret in itself. You already want to be _in_ that inn with Max, learning all the secrets she knows. “I haven’t heard any stories about you,” you say. “How is that possible?”

“The world only wants to tell stories about blood and violence and gold,” Max says. “Battles fought by armies and heroes, with swords and cannons. There are other kinds of battles that are not seen by the world. I am content with what I have achieved. I am happy for it to remain private knowledge, possessed by a few, and I would like fame to bestow its gifts on those who desire it more.”

The gentle affection in her eyes is not for you; you recognise it, though, because you have seen it in Bonny’s eyes before. Max is thinking of Rackham, the same way Bonny thinks of Rackham.

“I don’t want stories to be told about me either,” you say.

“But they will be,” Max says. “Stories are told about Jack, and if you stand beside him on his ship, where everyone can see… Stories will be told about you. And they will not be true. They never are. You must understand that now, if you are to stay on his crew and gain his trust.”

“That’s all right,” you say, quietly. “It’s worth it.”

“Some people are,” Max says, and now the affection in her eyes, you are sure, is reflected in your own.

* * *

You stare into your empty cup and put it down. “So. Where do you suppose the captain is?”

“You’ve got to stop calling him that,” Bonny says. “Hasn’t he told you to stop?”

“Yes,” you say, your cheeks flushed with warmth. You’ve been drinking too much. “He told me to call him Jack, but I said it didn’t feel right.”

Bonny rolls her eyes. “Jack always wanted to stand next to giants. Wonder how he feels about being one of them and having someone look up to him at last.”

“It’s hard to believe he was ever not Captain Rackham,” you say. “Hard to believe he was ever…” You wave your hand vaguely in the air.

“Under-appreciated, he always said.” Bonny smirks.

“He’s so… _competent_.” It isn’t the best word, it doesn’t encapsulate what Rackham is, the extraordinary aura that he gives, as odd and distinctive as the sunrise-pink of his coat. He’s self-assured and ready and clever, without the kind of haughty prejudice that sometimes accompanies intelligence; he’s funny and considerate and generous.

“Yeah, and he also likes art and tailoring and philosophy,” Bonny says. “He talks too much about things that nobody else gives a fuck about. It ain’t normal in a pirate captain. Or in anybody.” 

“He is unique,” you agree.

“He’s probably up in the fort. He goes there sometimes, squirrels himself away somewhere in the vaults.”

Somebody comes by and refills your cup, thankfully, and Bonny’s. “What does he do there?”

“It’s where Charles used to spend a lot of time. He had control of the fort for a while. You’ve heard about that business with the Spanish gold? We kept all of it under the fort. It was the only space big enough.” 

“Were you and Vane close?”

“Yeah,” Bonny says. “Yeah.” She picks up her cup and half the ale slides down her throat in one go. “Maybe not as close as him and Jack. Or maybe… maybe we were both just as close to Charles, but Jack felt… more.”

You note the significance of this intimation, but you don’t comment on it. It doesn’t feel completely new, but more a confirmation of something you already suspected. “So he goes to the fort when he misses Vane.”

“He always misses Charles.”

And yeah, you know how that feels. Your cup is almost empty again. You fall silent, giving into your own remembrances. Taverns are the same all over the world. The smell of bodies and alcohol and smoke, and the chatter, the voices that mingle and rise louder and louder as the evening deepens. Spheres of peace and joy, now irrevocably tarnished for you by the skeletal touch of loss.

“The way you look at him,” Bonny says, startling you, “makes me think of the way he used to look at Charles.”

She scrutinises you, and you hide behind your cup, your face hot and your hands damp, but there’s only so long you can act like you’re still drinking the dregs. “Not like when he hated Charles, I hope,” you say.

“Not sure he ever really hated Charles,” Bonny says, with the tiniest smile at the edge of her lips.

You let yourself really look at Bonny, in her green coat and brown shirt. Her belt and trousers are obscured from view right now by the table between you. Her hat sits on the table besides yours. You’re not dressed that differently.

“When you first started sailing, did you ever pretend to be a boy?” you ask. Your throat is tight and your tongue unwieldy, hating the phrase that you’ve made it utter. ‘Pretend to be a boy’. It’s what you told Guillaum at first. That you were pretending, you’d disguised yourself as a man, but you weren’t really one. He’d smiled languidly and reached for you, whispering, “Mary, _Mary_.” A common English name, but you’d heard the religious devotion of Catholics to the Virgin Mother when it passed Guillaum’s lips.

“Yeah,” Bonny says.

“How did it feel?” you say, cautiously.

“I liked the way the world seemed easier,” she says. “But _I_ didn’t feel any easier. I felt easier again when it came out that I was really a girl and I didn’t have to put all that effort into pretending anymore.”

You imagine being like Bonny. Wearing the clothes you’re wearing now, but growing your hair long again. Speaking without having to adjust the pitch of your voice, walking without having to be so conscious of your gait. Telling people that your name is Mary.

It’s not something you can really envision for yourself. Or you can, but it doesn’t feel like you. It feels like you’re imagining somebody else.

“You’d rather be Anne,” you say.

“Yeah.”

“If you were a man though,” you say, “you’d be able to marry Max.”

Bonny scowls at you. “Why the fuck would I want to marry her?” she spits.

“Aren’t you two…”

“I love her,” Bonny says, fiercely. “But that doesn’t mean I wanna be married.”

Her vehemence shocks you. There’s probably something here that you shouldn’t try to unearth. You wouldn’t really say you were friends with Anne Bonny yet. “I was married, once,” you say, mildly.

“Yeah? And how’d that turn out for you?” Bonny’s still snarling, resentful of the very idea of marriage, even if it’s not a marriage that involves her.

“I was happy for a few years,” you reply. “But Death came between us and stole my love from me.”

Bonny’s face, scrunched with disgust before, softens. You remember thinking that her eyes were like hailstones, the first time you saw her. They’re not anything like that now, but thawed and clear as dew. “‘m sorry,” she says.

That night, you’re lying in bed when you hear Rackham returning to his room, and shortly, a mournful melody floats into the air. It’s badly-done, screeching in parts, faltering and fading, restarting with a little more conviction. You’re smiling, then laughing, then nudging your cheek against your pillow to wipe away tears. You haven’t heard the rich, slow depth of a cello in too long. Even in Rackham’s tentative and erroneous notes, you can hear Guillaum’s ghost, dancing around you.

* * *

“Do you require a mirror?” Rackham asks, looking around at your bare room in blatant dissatisfaction. “I could have one purchased and brought in.”

You roll your shoulders indifferently. “That would be nice.”

“What’ve you got there?” Rackham asks, indicating the book on your bed.

You’re hesitant about showing it to him. “I like to draw,” you say, sitting down on your bed and placing the book of sketches on your lap.

“Really!” Rackham exclaims. “I’ve a great admiration for people who can draw. I don’t have any knack for it myself. You know my flag…? I’ve been through several designs, but they were all done by one of the girls at Max’s inn. Her name was Charlotte.”

“Was?”

Rackham grimaces. “There was an… incident. With Anne. That is to say, Anne killed her.”

“Jesus.” You shield your sketch-book with your hands, as if to ward off the clutches of fate from it and therefore from your life, as if anyone with artistic inclinations might attract Anne’s lethal ire.

“Nothing like that will ever happen again,” Rackham reassures you. Then he gingerly adds, “Probably.”

“What did Charlotte _do_?”

“Nothing,” Rackham says. “Anne was going through a very turbulent phase, a complete destruction and regeneration of her sense of self…” Rackham taps his fingers against one of the four wooden posts that frame your bed. “You’ve met Max, yes?”

“Yes.”

“The beginning of our partnership of three was… rocky, to say the least. You’d best ask Anne for the whole story, as it isn’t mine to tell.” He sighs. “I was partly to blame, and I regret my missteps. Charlotte was extremely patient with my no doubt difficult and fussy demands, and I wouldn’t have a flag if not for her dedication. I see art as… essential and necessary to everything I endeavour to accomplish and to _be_.” He points at your sketch-book. “May I take a look?”

“It’s…” You glance down. “Well, you’ll see.” You hand it over to him.

He opens it, flips through it slowly, quizzically. “Who’s the subject?” he asks, when he reaches the first blank page.

“He was my husband.” A barely-suppressed ripple of astonishment contorts Rackham’s face, and you smile, your chest aching with the energy it takes to live with the immovable weight of Guillaum’s death bearing down always upon your ribs. “I met him when I was fighting in the Continent. He was a fellow soldier. Flemish. After he died, I started to make these sketches, once or twice a month. I wanted to see what details about him would get hazier over time, which parts of him would begin to elude me. I intend to carry on until I forget everything.”

“He was… very handsome.” Rackham puts the book down on the bed again, behind you. “May I sit?”

You pat the bed to welcome him. He sits next to you, and he says, clearly still struggling with the information he’s just been given, “When you say he was your husband…”

You get up to retrieve another book from the chest at the foot of your bed. This one is older, and you can see Rackham absorb this fact as he accepts it from you and smooths his hand over the worn, pliant leather cover. He looks through the sketches it contains, scenes of soldiers at rest, eating and smoking and playing with dice, dozing in fields and under trees. Guillaum, you know, features in some of them, but he looks like any other soldier in uniform, his face an anonymous blur. Then there’s a smattering of sketches of Guillaum’s face, which to you are both precious and embarrassing in the way they evoke your initial infatuation. How lovingly you depicted his high nose, his scarred brow, his tranquil mouth.

These are followed by a sequence of scenes from a dimly-lit tavern, shadows crowding around patrons. In some of them you can spy a man in their midst, playing the cello.

At the end, there is a watercolour on a loose sheet, tucked in between the last page and the back cover. It is very roughly done, and not in your style at all. Rackham holds it out before him, inspecting it. “That’s you in a dress,” he says.

“Yeah,” you say. “He did that one.”

“You’re the superior artist,” Rackham murmurs. You don’t think Guillaum was too bad—certainly a better artist than Rackham is a cellist. But art wasn’t Guillaum’s interest, not the way it is yours. You’re recognisable in the watercolour, at least. Even in a dress, the pale blue swell of it billowing like a wave. Your hair was cropped short as it is now; you’ve never grown it out, not even during those three years when you were married to Guillaum. He never asked you to.

“Forgive me,” Rackham says, “but I want to make sure I’ve understood you correctly. I get the impression that you’re _not_ trying to tell me that you’re a woman.”

“I’m not a woman,” you say. This you have always been quite sure of, despite your uncertainty about everything else. “I have tits, and I don’t have a prick, but I’m not a woman.”

Rackham inhales. “Right.”

You breathe in deep, too. “I’m not a man either,” you say, and this is the first time you’ve ever said both of those statements together. Neither woman nor man. You’ve considered this implausible conjunction, many times, in dreams and when hacking enemy flesh with your sword, when marching in single file at dawn. When Guillaum peeled your dress from your body and kissed your shoulder and pressed his prick inside you. When you introduced yourself as Mark Read to Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny. “I don’t know what I am. I loved my husband, and I liked being married, but I didn’t like being his _wife_.”

Rackham gestures at you. “What about now? How do you feel now?”

“I like wearing these clothes,” you say. “I feel better in them than I do in a dress, most days. But I look at Anne and I know that that’s not me. I like being Mark. It’s what I’ve been called most of my life. My mother raised me as a boy. It didn’t bother me when I was younger, I thought of it as a game… But calling myself a man feels less and less like it suits me. It’s like a pair of ill-fitting boots. You know you can’t walk in them for too long or your feet will blister and bleed.”

“But you would still like to be called Mark,” Rackham says.

“Yes.” Mary, if she ever existed, feels like someone that died with Guillaum and was buried with him in Dutch soil, sharing his grave for all eternity. You are not Mary; but perhaps one day you will not be Mark, either. But today, Mark is who you are.

“And when I’m speaking to someone else and referring to you, shall I continue to say ‘he’, not ‘she’?”

“That’s fine with me,” you say. “Just… don’t call me a man. I realise it makes little sense, but…”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Rackham says. “My life has never made much sense—certainly it would baffle anyone if I attempted to render its complex and uncommon intricacies into words...” He trails off, looking pensive.

You are in agreement with him. The stories leave so much out, all the truly fascinating parts of Rackham’s life. Yet how could the stories possibly encompass things that you are still gradually working to grasp the shape of, to piece together obliquely, from looks and touches and gestures and allusions, and the gaps between what is spoken aloud? These are things too massive for stories. They are worlds in themselves.

“Yeah, you and Bonny and Max…” you venture, nervously. “I don’t know if I understand what’s going on exactly with the three of you.”

“Me neither,” Rackham says. He grins at you, and there’s a soft, comfortable ache in your belly as you look at him, feeling bashful and bold at the same time. You are delighted to be Rackham’s companion in perplexity; to be lost with him, to be at sea and not alone.

He clears his throat, shifting his gaze to the floor. “There’s a story in the _Metamorphoses_... We haven’t got to it yet. A married couple is about to give birth to a child, but they’re poor as dirt, and they can’t afford to have a daughter—dowries were costly, you see. In those days the destitute and desperate used to leave female babies to die in the mountains and suchlike. No doubt this wretched practice isn’t entirely extinct even now… So the wife goes through labour, and it’s a girl. ‘It’s a boy!’ she tells her husband, and she calls the child Iphis, which is neither a boy’s name nor a girl’s. When Iphis is grown, her father arranges for her to be married to a lovely woman called Ianthe. Ianthe sees Iphis and falls in love, Iphis sees Ianthe and falls in love, but _obviously_ they cannot be married because Iphis is in fact also a woman. So Iphis’ mother brings her to the temple of Isis and prays to the goddess for assistance. With the goddess’ blessing, Iphis is transformed into a man. He marries Ianthe, and they live happily ever after.”

You laugh. It reminds you a little of what you said to Anne some nights ago, about her being able to marry Max if she was a man, and you see the folly of it now. “If it was that simple…” You lift your hands into the air, beseeching unseen deities. “Goddess Isis!”

Rackham chuckles, and you are enchanted by the creases around his eyes.

“I think even if Isis gave me a prick, it still wouldn’t feel right. It wouldn’t make me any more of a man than I am now. Now, if the goddess made me taller, _then_ maybe we’d get somewhere…” You smile as you study Rackham’s face, his rapt eyes, the amusement that lingers on his lips. You want this expression preserved on paper forever, but you close your eyes and make do with memory, even knowing how flawed it is. “Good for Iphis, though, I suppose.”

“Why did _your_ mother raise you as a boy?” Rackham asks.

“I was a bastard. My mother’s husband died at sea before I was born. I had a brother called Mark, who was legitimate, but he died too, and my mother decided to pass me off as Mark.”

“Do you wish she hadn’t?”

You shake your head. “I used to wish it. I truly thought that if I married Guillaum and tried to be his wife, it would work. But it didn’t. It wasn’t me.” You run your thumb along the edge of the watercolour portrait. “Only sometimes I see a pretty dress and I miss it. Miss the ruffles and the frills.” You think of Max’s exquisite red dress, wrapped around her body like a lover’s embrace; how you’d coveted it though the sight of it stifled you, half-choked you.

“Mark.” Rackham’s hand creeps closer to yours on the bedcover, until his fingers are just brushing against yours.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” you say, leaning your head on Rackham’s shoulder. “I’m allowed to change, aren’t I.” You are not seeking his assent; you already know he’s with you.

“My friend,” he says, squeezing your hand. Your heart flutters inside your chest, feeble and frantic. “We are _all_ metamorphoses in progress. Besides, if you weren’t looking for change, then you have come to the wrong place. Nothing here is the same from day to day. That’s the beauty and terror of Nassau.”

* * *

The moon is a wedge of pale fruit in the sky, and you and Bonny are talking in the bow of the ship. “At least you’re not running round stabbing everybody who gets in your way,” Bonny mutters. “Not like I did.”

“Well, my crisis is a rather prolonged one compared to yours,” you say, with a rigid smile. “I’ve been confused for years. I can’t sustain a murderous rampage that long.”

“True,” Bonny says. “But now you know. I haven’t always been sure of myself, and when I wasn’t sure… It was _bloody_.”

You’re not frightened of Bonny, but if you’d met her a few years ago, you would have been absolutely terrified. “You figured it out, though, didn’t you? You fought your way out of your confusion.”

“Yeah.” Bonny leans back and stares up at the sky. “But I guess there ain’t nothing wrong with taking your time to figure it out, so long as nobody’s dying ‘cuz of it. Better to try than stay stuck in the shape that hurts you.”

You blink. Bonny’s wisdom is like a wiry dog that leaps out of nowhere in the night, barkless but with piercing teeth. “I guess you’re right.”

“I got angry at Jack once. After Charles died. I saw he was _floundering_ , like a fucking fish just flapping about on the sand waiting for someone to skewer him and roast him for dinner. I said I wasn’t here to figure out who I am. But that was only ‘cuz I’d already done it, hadn’t I. Shouldn’t have been so pissed off at him, that it was taking him longer than it took me.”

You shuddered at Bonny’s vivid comparison of Rackham to a fish for human consumption, and it strikes you now, envisioning Vane hanging in a square in Nassau, how close Bonny and Rackham might have come to death: to dying before you had ever met them, before you had the chance to discover their story for yourself.

You’ve seen the scars on Bonny’s hands. Both her hands are a chaos of marred flesh, lines criss-crossing like maps of twin cities. You can’t even think what could have caused wounds like that. “Did you almost lose him? Or did he almost lose you?”

Bonny closes her eyes. “Ever seen someone keelhauled?”

“Fuck.” Even the word makes you sick. You know what it is. “No.”

“Teach was keelhauled,” Bonny says. “Do they tell stories about that?”

“No,” you say. “They just say he was killed in battle with the English.”

“I was there. Had to watch it all. I dream about it sometimes. Jack dreams about it more than I do. He was going to be next.” Her face is blank as the sea, and just as dark.

Tears are welling in your eyes, slipping down your cheeks, terrible and wet. You don’t know why you’re crying. Bonny glances at you, and she reaches out and touches your hair, tousling it, her fingers sliding past your ear. “I could never tell Max about this,” she says. “She loves him too much, even if she won’t say. I shouldn’t have told you, either. You’re gonna dream about it too, now.”

“You needed to share the horror with somebody,” you say, even though you wish she hadn’t told you. You _will_ dream about it.

Bonny nods, her face still vacant. “I almost died, too.” Her hand falls from your hair, and she looks down at it. “And then he went away, and everyone was sure he was gonna die.”

“Were you?”

“He came back.” The shaky breath Bonny takes is the only betrayal of her emotion. “That’s all that matters.”

“Why do you keep risking it? Why not take up an honest occupation?”

“People die anywhere.” Bonny meets your gaze steadily, a resolution in her eyes long formed, as firm and unyielding as the sky. “It’s Jack’s choice, and so it’s mine.” 

Guillaum was taken by a sudden illness, something painful and slow. He’d survived gunshots and gashes in battle, even recovered from a stomach wound once, miracle of miracles. The bright scarlet of his blood, and the agony that carved his face into something nearly unrecognisable—these things have never left you. “If we’re ever arrested… I’d die trying to get him out. Or I’d die with him.”

Bonny stares at you, and now you’re not sure you know how to read her face, her knitted brow and her thoughtful mouth, the twitch in her jaw. You can feel the blush upon your own face, though, your cheeks warming underneath still-drying tear tracks. That was too strong a declaration, and you want to snatch back the words from the air and swallow them again.

Then Bonny slaps your arm, her lips quirking in that sweet and lopsided manner that astounds you every time. “Lighten the fuck up. You’ve only just got started on the account. Stop thinking ‘bout how it’s gonna end already.”

* * *

You’ve been studying yourself in the mirror in your room lately, the mirror that Rackham acquired for you to make your room seem a little less like a barren wasteland, in his words. You eye your clothes critically. They are loose and unadorned; shabby and forgettable in their shades of ash-grey and midnight-blue. 

They are clothes you have felt safe and nameless in. Clothes that allow you to appear just like everybody else. In the army you had worn a soldier’s uniform, and that too had made you… well, uniform. Indistinguishable from other soldiers. Just one of the pack. 

The uniform had been slim-fitting. You remember feeling good in it. Feeling sleek and powerful, like a well-aimed weapon.

After that, for a time, there had been dresses. Colour. Difference. Choices to make, between one and another. Every morning asking yourself the question: what do you feel like today? Something brighter, or something more subtle? Green, or yellow?

And now, this plain, oversized sailor’s costume, a rain-cloud drabness that hangs about you day after day. Dissatisfaction has grown wide in you, gaping like a hungry animal’s throat. You’re not sure what you want. Not dresses. You couldn’t wear those in public, not anymore. But perhaps…

You find yourself at the tailor’s with a bag of coins that jangle tunefully as only new wealth can do. When you exit, you are humming and a great deal less burdened, and you nearly walk straight into Max.

She glances behind you at the shop you’ve just come out of and smiles. “Buying new clothes? Jack will be so pleased.”

“How d’you know it’ll be clothes that he’ll like?” Your fists are tight at your sides. You feel defensive for no reason, ready to fight.

Max directs a sceptical look at you that seems to say, _Lie to yourself if you would like, but you cannot lie to me._ But out loud, she grants: “Yes, I suppose I cannot say until he has judged your purchases himself. And thinking on it more, I should say he would be rather disappointed you did not take him along with you on this little outfitting excursion. No doubt he would have loved to contribute his expertise.”

You’re following her now as she walks on, and you’re too transfixed by the bounce of her curls to speak.

“I am buying new clothes too,” she says. “Would you like to come with me?”

You would. You do. When she’s choosing fabric for a few new dresses, you listen and watch, and let your fingers trace patterns woven into silk, flowers printed on cotton. In the tailor’s shop too you had touched the samples of material offered to you, but here at the dressmaker’s with most of the attention focused on Max, you feel more freedom to take your time discovering the texture of everything.

“You wear such beautiful things,” you say to her as the two of you are leaving the shop. She is in frothy cream taffeta today, the milkiness of it contrasted by heavy black embroidery.

She turns to look at you, considering. Was that too much longing in your voice? “Thank you,” she says. “You know, I do not think anyone has ever said that to me. Maybe men have, when truly they mean, _When can I take these clothes off you?_ But you do not mean that.”

You hunch your shoulders, embarrassed. “I just feel like I can hear your voice in what you wear. Which is probably nonsense to you, but it’s how I feel.”

A radiant light falls across her face. “It is not nonsense. How I dress… It is extremely important to me. I put thought into it every day. Thought, and gratitude. My clothes are the most visible symbol of what I have worked so hard to achieve. If they speak to you in my voice, that is all I have wanted.”

You walk on together in silence, until the buildings thin out and you can see the beach and the waves in the distance. 

“What do they say?” Max asks. “My clothes.”

“That you’re fearless.”

She laughs. “I am not fearless, but I am glad my clothes say I am.” She looks down at the sand at her feet. “I knew a woman once. Her clothes spoke to me too, in her brash, lovely voice. She wore such extraordinary things with such… ah, flair? Like no one else I had ever seen. This leather vest…” She shakes her head, dislodging memories. “And then she went away, and when she came back, she was wearing beautiful dresses like mine, and I could no longer hear her voice in them. But if my clothes say that I am fearless, then she is still speaking through them... Through _me_.” 

You stand as witness to the tide of her grief as she kicks gently at the sand, as if the voice of this woman she’s speaking of might be buried somewhere underneath, and her shoes leave impressions that will vanish quickly, in one breath of the wind.

* * *

It has been two months since you met Jack Rackham, and you have never wanted to punch him as much as you do tonight. Philadelphia is _cold_ , yes, but it’s no colder than any of the places you spent time in before you came to Nassau. And surely Jack too is from England? How did he survive childhood, if he’s this pathetic in cooler climes?

You actually rather like the cold. Walking around shrouded in a thick, heavy coat that’s entirely too big for you creates the wonderful sensation of being an amorphous mass of wool, bobbing down the streets with little awareness of how other people see you. You love Nassau, but you and the Caribbean heat are not well-matched in the slightest.

“I honestly cannot believe this room doesn’t have a fireplace, what kind of _barbaric_ inn is this?” Jack says. You kind of agree with him, having owned an inn once. “Does the concept of hospitality mean _nothing_ to these people?”

“Shut the _fuck_ up,” Anne says, for the fifteenth time. You’re counting. “Or I’m gonna knock you out.”

You listen to the muffled noises that are coming from the room next door, the urgent tones of an argument. The white tongue of moonlight reaches through the window to lick at the wall opposite your bed. You stretch your legs out under the unoppressive weight of the blanket, rubbing your bare feet together. The pillow is cool under your cheek. You can just about make out the lump in the bed next to yours, a lump that you know is not just one body, but two.

“If you wake up in the morning to find me frozen into an icicle, please tell Augustus I love him.”

You groan, and Anne sits up and says, “That’s it, I’m gonna pick you up and carry you outside and leave you there. You can turn into a snowman for all I care.”

There’s a whine, and for a second you think a cat must have got into the room.

You get out of your bed, and wince. Jesus, that floor _is_ cold. You dart across it on the tips of your toes and climb onto the other bed, giving Jack’s back a shove. “Move over.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Anne asks.

“I’m getting the captain to shut up so we can all get some sleep.”

Jack has turned his face up towards you, but you can’t see his expression. You wriggle under the blanket, but you feel some of it being yanked in the other direction as Anne hisses, “There ain’t that much blanket to share.”

That’s all right. You sling your arm over Jack’s waist. God, he’s bony. You bury your face in the loose fabric of his undershirt at his back. “I love your voice, Captain,” you mumble, “but if I hear another word from you before dawn…”

He doesn’t say anything. You don’t quite realise how tense he is until you feel the muscles in his abdomen relax and begin to rise and fall normally.

Your thoughts slow, keeping time with the rhythm of his breaths.

When you open your eyes, your face is pressed against someone’s shirt. For a muddy second you think, _Guillaum_. But then you remember. You had not fallen asleep holding anyone in a long time. Rackham has turned around in the night, so that you’re now facing each other, the top of your head tucked under his chin. And he’s holding you as much as you’re holding him, his hand on the small of your back.

You don’t dare move.

But it’s awful, not moving. You want to move, to do something.

Then his hand travels further up your back. “Mark?” he says, his voice fogged from sleep.

You draw back so you can look at his face. His dark eyes like the bottom of a well, the sideburns that bracket his jaw, the moustache above his lip. His hand is tender now at the nape of your neck, his fingers just meandering back and forth in the ends of your hair. You bring your hand up to stroke his collar-bone where it peeks through the open neck of his shirt, and you smile as you grind your hips against his, against the hardness you can already feel a hint of.

His breath hitches. “A-Anne?” he stammers, because of course seeking Anne’s aid is his first reaction.

“Just kiss him already,” Anne growls, and your mouth is on Jack’s before you think to question whether Anne’s instruction was addressed to Jack or to you. 

In this moment, it wouldn’t feel unreasonable if you opened your eyes and found you were no longer human, but had, like numerous characters in the _Metamorphoses_ , been struck by divine power and transformed into something else: a river, a flower, a bird. The warmth of Jack’s mouth is the warmth of the first fire, the one that Prometheus brought down from the gods.

You weren’t this poetic before you met Jack. That’s a metamorphosis, too.

You kiss him slowly, revelling in it as you would in the unfolding of a story, in learning each particular detail as it comes to you: the texture of his tongue against yours, the resistance of his upper lip as you bite it between your teeth.

You slide a hand down to press against his crotch, to squeeze him through his trousers, and he gasps into your mouth. God, you love the shape and fullness of a hard prick.

“He likes being held down and fucked,” Anne says, smugness in her voice like honey, and a shiver passes through you at the same time that Jack moans, kissing you more sloppily, sucking on your bottom lip like he’s begging for something. Well, that was definitely something you didn’t know you wanted to hear.

“Get these trousers off,” you mutter to him, and he obeys, hurriedly pushing them down from his hips. You trace his lips with two fingers and slip the fingers in his mouth. Spit runs down his chin as he laves your fingers with his tongue and sucks them greedily, and his eyes darken and burn like a cello in a firelit tavern.

You roll him onto his front and he brings his arms up above his head without even being _asked_ , and Anne’s hands are there, her scarred hands, pinning his wrists together, like they have done this a thousand times before and will do it a thousand more. They know this as well as they know sailing or breathing, but _you_ are here, you are what is different about this. You are unknown yet knowable, and they are arranging themselves into a new configuration to fit you.

You look at Anne and her eyes are the shallows by the beaches of Nassau, glowing and warm; her cheeks are pink, and you want to kiss her just as much as you want everything, _everything_ that could possibly go on in this bed, with the three of you.

You knead Jack’s arse, pulling his arse-cheeks apart, and Jack squirms and moans, his shoulders shaking. “Ask me for it, Captain,” you say, your voice hoarse and deep as it can go.

“Please, Mark, _fuck_ me,” he says, and this blinding _want_ is a fiery sun that has never before touched your body with its rays. You are kneeling between his spread legs, and you have to pull one of his thighs between your own so that you can rock down on it, you are so overwhelmed with desire. You press a finger inside him, working him open, and Anne scrapes her nails down Jack’s back. He whimpers and clenches down on your finger.

“More, please, make me feel it.”

You refuse. You keep thrusting with only one finger, in and out of him, and your thumb massaging the skin behind his balls. He groans and complains, “Why does everyone I end up in bed with insist on being such a goddamn tease!”

Anne bends to murmur by his ear, but you hear her: “Why do _you_ insist on being such a needy fucking whore, that’s what I’d like to know.”

Jack shudders and grunts, and a needy moan escapes your own lips— _fuck_ , Anne is remarkable. You distantly recall thinking once she’d make a striking figurehead on a ship, but that was before you came to treasure every word that came out of her mouth; you’d be devastated if she never spoke again. You roll your hips down, riding Jack’s leg once more, and Anne stares at you shrewdly, with a wicked smirk.

“Please,” Jack says again, and you press another finger inside him. “A-ah, thank you,” he gasps, and you want to add another immediately, but you also want to play with him and make sure he’s loose and ready. You lean over him and kiss his back, the lean muscle and the hollow line in the middle over the column of his spine. 

“Pull his hair,” Anne says, just as you feel her hand in your own hair, tugging just lightly. “He loves that.” You look up at her again, her mouth so severe and demanding and lovely. You grasp her wrist to hold her hand still so you can turn your head and kiss her palm, the ridges of her scars bumpy under your lips. There’s a thrill of surprise in her eyes, like ice cracking.

You let go of her hand and reach for Jack’s hair instead, clutching a handful of it and pulling. He cries out, delicious and incoherent noises that shiver through your stomach, and he spreads his thighs wider, his hips rising off the bed in answer to the thrust of your fingers. “Christ, _please_.”

Because you’re pulling on his hair, he’s raised his head and he’s now looking up at Anne, who seems to be coaxing him through this with her quiet, meaningful glances. You push another finger inside him, and he ruts against the bed, one of Anne’s hands still holding his wrists fast, and the other alternatively scratching the back of Jack’s neck and caressing the skin there—suddenly sweet, suddenly rough.

“Darling,” he moans. “ _Darlings_.”

“Darling,” you echo, your hand trembling in his hair. “Darling, you can come.”

And he does, spilling carelessly into the sheets beneath, his breath a long, precious whine. You release your hold on his hair, and Anne looks at you almost lazily before she pushes you down onto the bed, climbing over Jack to straddle your waist and kiss you. There’s nothing soft about the way she kisses you; you’ve seen her softness with Max, and you’re glad that there’s no hint of that here with you. You want everything jagged and harsh about her, her fingers digging into your sides like claws.

She breaks the kiss and crawls up until she can sit on your face, and you lap at her cunt as she rocks against your mouth, your hands grabbing onto her perfect thighs. You feel hands on your hips, thumbs hooking under the waistband of your trousers, a question wrapped in a pause. You lift your hips up, and your trousers are undone, pulled down, gone. Fingers slip through your wetness and you moan against Anne’s heat, opening your legs for Jack, and his tongue is on you, his glorious tongue that is always talking and talking and talking—silent now, but still so clever.

He lets Anne do the talking, lets Anne say things like, “Yeah, be good for me, both of you… Jack, show Mark what a good boy you are. I’ve taught you well, haven’t I?” And he drinks from you, and you from Anne, and you’ve heard sailors who drink sea-water go mad from it: you think you know the feeling, feverish and gasping and wild, as Anne grinds down harder, and you make a fist in Jack’s hair, pulling him closer, closer to you.

* * *

Jack is staring at you like you’re some kind of god.

You’re trying on your new clothes at the tailor’s. Max had swanned into the Governor’s house at breakfast this morning announcing that she intended to collect her new dresses today, and asked if you would so kindly accompany her as you should probably visit the tailor’s as well. Jack leapt up at once and insisted on tagging along, and somewhere on the way there Anne had slunk out of the shadows between some buildings and joined you. And now the quartet of you are at the tailor’s together. This seems very unnecessary to you, but here you are.

You have to admit though, as you turn and twist to appraise yourself fully in the mirror, that you do look good.

Your jacket is a deep, rich blue with a shimmer to it, trimmed with white and embroidered with silver stars, tiny as flecks of snow. Ivory lace droops delicately from the cuffs—you don’t expect that lace will last long, but you wanted it nonetheless. Around your neck you’ve tied a light pea green scarf, and the shirt beneath is a pale peach, the same shade as Rackham’s coat. Your trousers are a darker blue than your jacket, well-fitted and striped with thin lines of grey. A tan studded belt holds it all together.

Jack is babbling something about the spectacular cut of the jacket. His hands hover in the air as if he would like to touch you but he’s filled with too much reverence for the tailoring. 

You glance at Anne for help and she says, “Yeah, he was like this too when I finally got some new clothes.”

Max walks up to you and touches the lace that spills from your cuffs, contemplatively. “You see, I knew Jack would be appreciative,” Max murmurs. “And now I think I will be on my way. My new dresses await. And I know Anne may seem composed now in comparison to Jack, but let me tell you that whenever she sees me in a new dress, she always has this adoring look in her eyes, as if she would swoon, were she the swooning type.”

“I do _not_ ,” Anne mutters darkly.

“I’d like to wear a dress again, someday,” you say brightly, looking directly at Anne.

Anne’s eyes glaze over. You think you’re getting a glimpse of what Max means.

And then Max is dragging Anne from the shop, and it’s just you and Jack and the tailor awkwardly acting like he hasn’t been paying attention to any of you, and Jack pulls you behind the screen and grasps a fistful of your new shirt and kisses you, and with each kiss you feel like one of the stars on your jacket is bursting, trailing a fiery, golden comet of heat along your body.

* * *

Anne lies between you and Max, her back to you, as Max reads from a book. The words float past you hazily, not meant for you but for Anne. Shrill shrieks of pleasure and creaking bedsteads in nearby rooms compete with the gentle murmur of Max’s voice. As Max reads, she combs her fingers through Anne’s long red hair, and she briefly slants her gaze over Anne’s head at you, tired and fond. You have found yourself in her brothel, after all.

The door opens with a yawn, and you turn your head sluggishly towards it. Jack steps through, kicking the door shut behind him. Max has continued reading, undeterred.

“Are you _reading_ to Anne?” Jack asks, stomping over to Max’s side of the bed and staring down at the page. “French poetry? Jesus. _Anne_.” He gives her an imploring look, pouting lips and puppy eyes. “I’m hurt that you’ll let Max read _French poetry_ to you, but if I ever so much as _mention_ a book to you”—Anne must have rolled her eyes at him, because he says—“you do that. Thank you kindly for demonstrating.”

Then he catches sight of the wooden cock you’ve left lying on the sheets by your feet, and his gaze shifts slowly to you, as he raises his eyebrow. You smile at him, and his jaw twitches.

“Come here,” you say, and he returns to your side of the bed, shrugging off his coat and tugging off his boots before he joins you on the bed. It’s really rather too cramped for four people, but nobody grumbles. You slip one arm under Jack and fling the other over him, so you can hug him snugly to you.

“Did you have a nice dinner with Featherstone?” you ask.

“Yes, it was splendid. He says he misses sailing. I might have to take him out on a sloop one of these days.”

You nuzzle the skin below his ear, kissing along one of his sideburns. “I wonder how I’d look with sideburns like these,” you muse.

“Darling, I could draw them on for you,” Jack says, and you laugh. “No, really, I’m being sincere—they would look tremendous on you, without a doubt.”

“We need a limit of one person in all of Nassau with those sideburns,” Anne says. “Max, ask Featherstone to make that a law here.”

Max stops reading. “You can ask him that yourself,” she says, mussing Anne’s hair. “He is still intimidated by you, you realise. He thinks you will not deign to speak to him.”

Anne says, “I waste all my energy talking to you three idiots, I don’t have any left for other people.”

“Hey!” Jack protests.

“You’re right, Max and Mark don’t deserve that. You’re the only idiot.”

You smirk as you pat Jack’s hair in consolation. He directs his sullen gaze at you, and then dips his head to kiss your throat, nipping your skin with his teeth as requital.

“I may be an idiot, but at least I’m not as much of an idiot as I used to be.” He looks shy, all of a sudden, casting his eyes down to where he is stroking your bare arm. “I—You know. I don’t think I ever told you, before Charles died, I was completely unable to confront the idea that I could desire somebody who wasn’t a woman, could yearn for them with every particle of my flesh and with the marrow in my bones. I could not _conceive_ of the idea, let alone accept it. And it has always… pained me that it took such a long time for me to grapple with it and look it in the face and acknowledge that it is a part of me. It is a tragedy that Charles had to die before I could even begin to perceive the shape of this thing in myself. But I am grateful that I found it and understood it before I met you, because when I met you, it did not take me any time to see that I was attracted to you, and I would not lose _any_ time.”

You’re overwhelmed, as always when grief and love join hands in a terrible dance. You cup Jack’s chin and urge his face towards yours, so that you can kiss him and savour the honesty on his lips, the rawness of his words making his mouth the sweetest thing you have ever tasted.

When you pull away, you stare in a daze at Jack’s reddened lips and his messy hair: all of it is your doing, the work of your hungry mouth and ardent hands.

You realise that at some point, Max has resumed her reading. “You should have brought the _Metamorphoses_ ,” you say, brushing your thumb along Jack’s cheekbone, feeling a little drunk on the dark mead of his eyes. “Aren’t we close to the end?”

“I know the last lines off by heart,” he says, proudly.

“Of course you do. Go on then, show-off.”

“ _And now, I have completed a great work, which not Jove's anger, and not fire nor steel, nor fast-consuming time can sweep away. Whenever it will, let the day come, which has dominion only over this mortal frame, and end for me the uncertain course of life. Yet in my better part I shall be borne immortal, far above the stars on high, and mine shall be a name indelible. Wherever Roman power extends her sway over the conquered lands, I shall be read by lips of men, and in fame through all the ages, if Poets' prophecies have any truth_ ”—and here he pauses, for dramatic effect as he’s so fond of doing—“ _I shall live._ ”

You have always thought that Jack’s voice is a key. A key to what? You think now that you can hear the sound of the door it unlocks, behind which lie all the days of your future, and names for all the things that you have yet to become, all the things you do not yet know you are.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are really appreciated. You can find me on [tumblr](http://reluming.tumblr.com/) as well if you'd like to get in touch about any aspect of this fic, if you want to share your nb!Mark feelings, or if you just wanna yell about Black Sails.


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